


different kind of gravity

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Healing, M/M, Metaphors, New love, Sam isn't Stable, Sam's dumb white boys, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but he is trying, but not the kind you're thinking, ghost - Freeform, idk man, lots of jumping from high shit, plums, vague illusions of dangerous and self-harming behaviors?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Riley taught him to watch this moment. To watch when the plane first breaks the clouds, and everything is...The blue is pale, dusted with yellow and pink. Nothing but rolling clouds, hills of soft, cottony white.See, Sam. Everything here? It’s ours, flyboy. It’s unreal, but it’s ours. Gravity, man, law? Fuck ‘em all! This, this empty, soft space is ours babe.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Past Sam Wilson/Riley - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	different kind of gravity

**Author's Note:**

> look i watched glee  
> and then kurt sang gravity  
> and i had feels

Riley taught him to watch this moment. To watch when the plane first breaks the clouds, and everything is...

The blue is pale, dusted with yellow and pink. Nothing but rolling clouds, hills of soft, cottony white. 

_ See, Sam. Everything here? It’s ours, flyboy. It’s unreal, but it’s ours. Gravity, man, law? Fuck ‘em all! This, this empty, soft space is ours babe.  _

Of course, then Sam’d put that mask on and jump. And goddamn, fuck it all. Gravity? That swoosh in his belly? The air whipping around him? 

Nothing to the sound of Riley whooping in his ears or the way the earth slowly rose into view, color deepening, solidifying. 

Riley was right, nothing was real about the clouds. 

Maybe that’s why Sam loves it up here. 

-

Riley dies, and Sam makes a bed in the clouds. He can still hear him up here. 

_ Go home, flyboy. Gravity’s gonna wake up soon. _

God, Sam hopes so. But it’s never the same. There’s always that inhale, that gasp of “did it work?” When he jumps now. 

The earth spirals into view, too bright, too solid, too real. 

Sam lands, and no one greets him with a smirk, a too tight hug, lips just behind his ears. 

_ Gravity won’t let you win forever, flyboy.  _

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m counting on it.”

-

It’s... 

It’s a new rush, on the cliff edge. He found it all on his own, this place. He’s not even sure where it is. 

Just rock, sparse grass, and a sea below him that’s black, blue, fucking furious.

_ You’re a speck, flyboy. The sea doesn’t give three shits about you.  _

“So fuck the sea then,” Sam snipes at the wind.

_ Gravity is different here. _

“That’s bullshit, honeysuckle. Gravity is gravity.”

Except. Except the earth is closer, and he’s got no wings, no parachute. No one is waiting at the bottom in case he splats. 

_ Sorry I skipped this one. _

“Yeah well, you punked out, bitch, I know you’re scared.”

Sam jumps before he can feel bad about that, arms thrown wide. His dive is goddamned olympic. Breaks the water soft and gentle, and it’s not the frothy white of clouds, but the water is silent underneath. Calm. 

Dark and brooding and so, so liquid. Nothing solid, nothing he can see. 

_ Hey, ok flyboy. Come up for air now. _

“Yes, sir,” Sam thinks. 

Fuck the air is cold on his skin. 

_ Different kinda falling flyboy. _

_ S’different kinda gravity.  _

-

_ Shit, you got wings! I missed actual fucking wings? Flyboy, you ass. _

“Can’t get above the clouds yet, though,” Sam reminds Riley. 

Riley’s ghost. 

The fucking voice in his head. 

_ Aw, ask your tincan. He can figure something out. _

Sam pushes the limits anyway. Sees how high Stark’s tech will take him before he spirals back down. 

_ Stop. Stop! Sam, Goddamn! Stop it. Fly, flyboy!  _

The turn is sharp, too sharp. He scuffs his knees and cracks a wing.

Tony eyes him critically, and Sam doesn’t know what he is seeing, but Tony just says, “I’ll fix that. Let’s get you and mask, something for the change in gravity and air pressure too.”

Riley, the ghost, Sam’s voice in his brain doesn’t add anything. 

-

“You gave it a beak,” Sam deadpans. 

“Falcon beak,” Tony grins. “Gives air, breaks resistance.”

“You just like the design. You’re mocking me.”

“A little,” Tony shrugs. “But you’ll make it just above the clouds now without risking death and destroying my tech.”

Sam flips him off, and then he leaps off the helipad. 

Up, up, and it’s too slow. It’s taking him too long. 

_ Patience, flyboy. Enjoy the ride.  _

“So you’re back.”

_ So you’re not defying gravity. _

Sam laughs at that. “White boy, I got a bird beak on and metal wings. This is the very definition of ‘defying gravity.’”

_ Different gravity. _

Yeah, different. Quieter. Colder. Calm though, soft. Colorless save for the faintest whispers of blue and yellow and pink. 

-

_ He’s pretty. A little greasy, little bulky.  _

“He’s a goddamned assassin and I’m fucking tired of chasing him” Sam growls. He’s perched in a tree, (fuck you, Tony) watching the skittish man below. 

_ He’s soft. He’s alone. He’s got no one, and he could break you. Just your type.  _

“Bullshit,” Sam says. “Besides. He’s got Steve.”

_ Different types of Gravity.  _

“The fuck does that mean?” Sam demands. Christ, is he supposed to answer his ghost out loud?

_ Boyfriend is getting away, Flyboy. Leave him some plum shampoo next time you catch him. _

Sam takes off, stomach swirling the wrong way at the sudden motion, the sudden dip towards the earth. “Bitch,” he tells Riley. 

-

Sam does. Leave some plum scented bath products. Bucky holes up in some goddamn abandoned...

Jesus does this even count as a motel? Did it when it was still functioning?

But it’s got some electricity and some sketchy water. Sam thinks Bucky rigged it, but he’s not complaining. He shacks up in his own room, high up and opposite the man who will most likely murder him in sleep. Happily. 

_ He isn’t running anymore. _

“Yet,” Sam reminds himself. His ghost. “Running yet.” 

_ He watches you too. _

“Fucking creepy.”

_ Just your type. Always did love to watch you jump. Sleep. Cry for me. _

“That last one is just mean,” Sam laughs. 

_ You know how I meant, flyboy. _

Jesus, are ghosts allowed to be that suggestive? “Different types of gravity,” Sam agrees. 

_ No, babe, defying gravity. _

-

He likes Bucky’s hovel. 

It’s tall. Forgotten. Lots of high ledges for Sam to sit on, contemplate on. 

_ Sure it’s sturdy enough?  _

Sam just shrugs, leans a little farther into the last of the sun’s rays breaking through the woods. 

_ Defy gravity enough, and it gets you. _

Riley’s ghost is gentle, but it still cuts Sam hard, steals his breath. 

He tips forward a little more, gasps for air. 

A hand grabs him by the collar of his shirt and Sam tries to twist out of it. 

Bucky just throws him onto a patchwork roof with a look of contempt that spells idiot. 

“Huh, so that’s where Steve learned that,” Sam muses. 

Bucky flinches back. A hard, full body thing, and disappears into the shadows. 

“Damn, Riley. He is very pretty.”

-

Sam’s more careful on the roof. 

And by “more careful”, he climbs higher and finds the sharper ledges. Draws Bucky out and grins as he jumps. 

Sometimes he lets himself hit the ground a little too hard. 

Sometimes he flies low enough to brush his hands over the tops of the trees. 

Sometimes he loses himself in the clouds and the blue-yellow-pink.

“You’re quieter these days,” Sam says to the clouds. 

_ Not gonna watch you kill yourself, flyboy.  _

“My thoughts should not be this bitchy,” Sam points out to the birds a mile away. 

When he finally lands, Bucky is almost always there, a white knuckle grip on some weapon or other. 

_ Don’t think he will be much longer either. _

“Man, shut the fuck up,” Sam snaps. 

Bucky blinks, and the look of confusion is so adorable, so lost, Sam sighs. 

He holds a cautious hand out. “C’mon. Let me brush the rats’ nest on your head.” 

He’s shocked when Bucky quietly, obediently follows him.

-

“It’s not stable,” Bucky says. 

Sam likes it, his voice. Somewhat gravelly, somewhat old school Brooklyn. So much fucking sass. 

“It’s a chair,” Sam says. 

Bucky crooks an eyebrow. 

Sam sits, and the whole thing collapses beneath him. He doesn’t miss the smirk that blinks across Bucky’s face. So. Worth it. 

“Hey man, not saying we gotta go...”  _ home _ isn’t exactly something Sam thinks Bucky relates to anymore. ”Can we find somewhere new?” Sam asks gently. 

Bucky eyes him critically. “Thought you liked your roosts.”

Sam is about to say something, then blurts, “Was that a joke?”

“Pretty and slow,” Bucky sighs. Like, real put upon. Like Steve when no one wants to run a bajillion miles at bitch o’clock in the morning with him. 

“Man, fuck you,” Sam huffs. 

“Ain’t saying no,” Bucky leers at him. 

What. The. Fuck. Did the notorious Winter Soldier,  _ the _ James Buchanan Barnes, Steve’s best friend just.

“I want a real fucking bed and a hot meal first,” Sam says. 

Bucky shrugs. “You asked, you pay.” 

_ I really like this one, flyboy. Keep ‘im. _

“Hello to you too,” he mutters as Bucky walks away. 

Hopefully to pack whatever shit he has. 

-

They do leave the... whatever that place was. 

Bucky even lets Sam check them into a decent motel on the eastern shore. 

Fucking Georgia, but it‘s at least American soil. 

“No roosts,” Bucky tells him with wide, puppy eyes. 

“Fuck. You.” Sam says. 

“I mean, that’s what the large bed is for right?” Bucky snarks. 

But there’s something cautious, something hopeful. 

_ He seems pretty consenting, if that’s your hesitation. Eager too.  _

Which, fuck you too Riley 

_ Already had my turn, flyboy.  _

“Steve’s gonna know I wanted too anyway,” Bucky tells him. “Probably’ll expect I did.”

Christ, what an unfortunate image. 

“You gotta shower first,” Sam sighs. 

Bucky beelines for the bathroom and Sam isn’t sure if Bucky is actually that excited to fuck  _ him _ , or just fuck. 

-

Bucky smells like plums. 

Which is Sam’s fault, and also Sam’s new favorite. 

It’s a different gravity, in this room. Heavier, more dangerous. Prettier and uglier. 

Bucky wants the lights on. Sam is totally on board with that. Scarred shoulder or no, he’s a beautiful specimen. 

Sam kisses the shoulder and doesn’t ask. He doesn't ask about the strange hairlessness, just strokes the sparse dark curls left between his legs and the long, silky hair. 

He kisses the vaccine scar, and the one behind his knee that looks older than Hydra. He kisses, touches, but he doesn’t ask.

Like Bucky doesn’t ask about the pair of aces inked into Sam’s ribs. Doesn’t ask as he licks the ink-bead chains or scrapes his nails on the strange, interwoven stalks of rye.

Cold metal and warm flesh fingers trace it reverently.

Sam kisses Bucky, or maybe it’s the other way, but who cares. 

This is better than flying, maybe. The same swoop in his belly as Bucky places his hands on Sam. 

It’s like he’s marveling at them. At his own hands and Sam’s skin. The contrast, the connection. 

“Beautiful,” Bucky mumbles to himself. 

Bucky eyes their skin on skin, like he sees the compliment Sam sees. The completion.

Sam kisses him hard, stares into eyes like the sky just above the sky. “Fucking gravity defying,” Sam swears. 

Bucky doesn’t get it, or maybe he does. 

But he produces lube like magic, opens Sam like it’s religious, fucks him like it’s the earth's last hour. 

-

Later, sweaty and sated and cuddling a surprisingly gentle assassin, Sam says, “I never did get my hot meal.”

“You’re supposed to feed me,” Bucky corrects. 

Sam laughs but he tells him, “I know a place. Best fried chicken and greens ever.”

Bucky nods, and then he sits back a little. He gently takes Sam’s hand. “I want...”

“Anything,” Sam says, maybe a little too fast.

“Take me home.” Bucky says it firmly, then adds. “Your home.” 

“I’ll make it yours too, Sam swears.” 

_ Fuck men and laws and gravity _ , and maybe it really is Riley’s ghost giving him permission or maybe it’s just Sam’s conscience. 

But as he and Bucky wind their way up north, Sam brushing the tips of the trees with Bucky always in his sight he thinks, “I’ll try defying gravity forever, if it means longer with you.”

Bucky gets it too, when he holds Sam wherever they hide for the night. “Gravity feels different with you.”

“It’s a heart thing, honeysuckle,” Sam tells him. “Gravity can’t touch us, can’t hold us down.” 

Bucky gives him a too knowing look, retreats in his head a little. “Whoever he was, he was brilliant.”

Sam kisses Bucky. “Yeah, he was. So are you.”


End file.
